138 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [17S5 



namely, to receive, with the like temper of liberality, gravity and 

 seriousness, as in the sight of Almighty God, what is now offered to 

 their acceptance and use by their Church representatives or deputies. 

 One part of the service you have just heard, and have devoutly joined 

 in it. Here the alterations are but few, and those, it is hoped, such as 

 tend to render it more solemn, beautiful and affecting ! The chief 

 alterations and amendments are proposed in the various offices, viz. : 

 of Baptism, &c., as hath been observed to you before, with the addition 

 of some new services or offices ; namely, for the 4th day of July, com- 

 memorative of the blessings of Civil and Religious Liberty ; the first 

 Thursday of November as a Thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth ; 

 and an office for the visitation of persons under the sentence of death ; 

 of all which you can only form a true judgment, when they shall be 

 published and proposed to you in the new prayer book. 



Brethren ! I am not a stranger to you in this pulpit ! But some 

 years have elapsed since I have addressed you from hence ; and a few 

 years more will close my lips forever ! This may possibly be my last 

 Sermon to you ; and, therefore, I would exhort you again to receive, 

 and examine, with a meek, candid, teachable and charitable temper of 

 mind, what is proposed to you on this solemn occasion; as a work 

 intended holy for the advancement of Religion and the maintenance of 

 Peace and Unity in our Church to latest posterity. Let all prejudices and 

 prepossessions be laid aside. Consider seriously what Christianity is ! 

 Vv'hat the truths of the Gospel are ! And how much it is our duty to 

 have them set forth and promulgated to the Christian world, and also the 

 Heathen world around us, in the clearest, plainest, most affecting and 

 majestic manner ! Let them never be obscured by dark and mysterious 

 sentences and definitions ; nor refined away by cunningly devised fables, 

 or the visionary glosses of men, thinking themselves wise above what is 

 written. Were our blessed Saviour now upon earth, he would not 

 narrow the terms of communion, by such ways as these ; and it is our 

 duty, as it hath been our great endeavour in all the alterations pro- 

 posed, to mak-,' the consciences of those easy who believe in the true 

 principles of Christianity in general, and who, could they be made easy 

 in certain points no way essential to Christianity itself, would rather 

 become worshippers as well as labourers, in that part of Christ's vine- 

 yard, in which we profess to worship and to labour, than in any other. 

 And what good man or Christian, either of the Clergy or Laity, can 

 object to this? If we are Christians, indeed; if the love of truth and 

 of one another, the true signs of the peace of Christ, prevail in our 

 hearts; there will be no disputing or gainsaying, in m.atters of this 

 kind. In all things, fundamental and necessary to salvation, we 

 ' shall speedily find a decision in the word of (iod ; ' and as to things 

 speculative and unnecessary, 'not finding them written there,' we will 



